Threads Across Time and Space
by Citiesofcolor
Summary: They are ships passing quietly in the night, travelling in opposite directions. They are lines, drawn parallel, stretching both ways into infinity. They are planets orbiting a central star, gracefully spinning through the black in their perfect orbits. But, sometimes even the orbits of the very planets intersect.


They are ships passing quietly in the night, travelling in opposite directions. They are lines, drawn parallel, stretching both ways into infinity. They are planets orbiting a central star, gracefully spinning through the black in their perfect orbits.

She is Mels, and Melody Pond, and River Song, and the only living human who was taught how to fly the TARDIS by the TARDIS herself. She has lived three lives really (the stolen child, the programmed weapon, the devoted lover)- or maybe just one with different bodies and names and times (the perfect match)- and all of them seem to revolve around him, her lovely dear Doctor. She runs forward, sometimes zigging and other times zagging her relatively straight timeline (but, who can ever keep it straight when there's the Doctor around?). Except that it doesn't seem so, not to him at least.

He is the Doctor (Doctor Who?) and just that, the Doctor, because anything else is a secret. He is the only living Time Lord, the keeper of the only living TARDIS (and certainly the only TARDIS to ever be named Sexy), and the (probably) only man to ever watch the death of his wife before they've really met. He has lived one life with 11 (and counting) bodies- or maybe it's really 11 (and counting) lives in 11 (and counting) bodies because each one feels new and old at the same time- and they've all revolved around him too. He runs, and just that, runs. He runs forward and backward and sideways and upside-down and right-side up and diagonally and, sometimes if he's feeling especially frisky, he doesn't move at all. Lines make him laugh, him with his timey-wimey ball. Except that it doesn't seem so, not to her at least.

It's all a matter of perspective really.

For her, she moves forward and he moves backward, all in a relatively straight line (except for the times he's nearly in two places at once), and grows progressively younger as she grows predictably older (she shouldn't care about wrinkles, she really shouldn't). She is first an orphan, then a psychopath, and then a wife, then a lover. He is a lover, a husband, a friend, an acquaintance, and then he is nothing to her at all. It all goes smoothly, nearly linear, and then she dies and then doesn't die, just like all humans eventually do (well, that first part at least, yes). Time has (for the most part) been nothing more than the logical progression of events.

For him, he moves forward and she's a Pollock painting. The line of her life is jumbled and crossed back over itself and tied in knots and then sometimes, he can't find it at all (well, not yet at least, but shh! Spoilers). First she's dead, then she's alive, then she's, older, then she's younger, then she's a child but there at the same time, and then she's watching him being shot as she's shooting him and trying to kill herself even though she knows it doesn't happen… Well, it's all really a bloody mess, honestly, and he thanks his wonderful Time-Lordy brain for thinking of something as simple as a notebook to keep all the straggling threads straight. Jim the fish and all that.

But, no matter where they meet in time, she knows who he is before he knows who she is. Mostly. At least until she doesn't. And once, he remembers, she doesn't even remember who she is.

Somehow though, despite all the tangles and snarls and near-misses and searching, they keep finding, fighting, flirting, loving, and running. Don't forget the running. Seriously, there's an outrageous amount of running involved.

See, sometimes the ship captains wave a friendly hello from their ships as they pass. Sometimes lines become perpendicular, crossing at perfect angles and maybe even recrossing further on down their respective paths. Sometimes even the orbits of the very planets intersect in their heavenly dance.

And maybe, even with the Doctor (and nothing is every easy with the Doctor), and even with a complicated space-time phenomenon like her (even if she's not nearly as complicated as him, so he thinks), the strings of their lives will tangle and intertwine once again and, in the end, make something beautiful.


End file.
